Lake Dorothy and Mount Whitney(3 Day
Backpack and Dayhike)

August 24-29, 2005

Trip Summary

This was my end of summer vacation trip. A three day backpack and my
usual Whitney dayhike interspersed with soaking and maintenance at my favorite
hot spring. I could say it was a celebration of my 40th birthday, but I always
go out at the end of the summer, when I take my vacation. As my trips often end
up, I went solo. All in all, a good week away from home. Trip reports that
involve actual hiking are linked below, this page covers non-hiking and summary
information.

Description

Wednesday, I got to Shepherd's
Spring around 2pm, after stops at Home Depot in Manteca for tools and supplies,
and Mammoth to pick up my wilderness permits and use the cell network there to
arrange stuff with the friends I'll be backpacking with next weekend (Labor Day
weekend). Somehow, in my hurry to get to work, I neglected to take pictures of
the issues with the tub...and the only guy who did is in Peru. Oh well.

Problems at the tub included: a chunk of broken wall on the drain side,
missing valve and pipe end, cow-trampling at the source, and the drain ditch
being filled with silt and muck.

Step 1 was to install an elbow on the inlet at the source...allowing me
to plug the pipe and get on with everything else. After draining the tub, I
started with the concretework, in replacing the lowest course of broken out
bricks with the very old original bricks, and the newer sections with the
original or new bricks. I even remembered to mould in bottle and can holders
into the wet concrete.

At that point, I was
joined by one of the nearby campers (a Forest Service contract worker
researching changes in the meadows post the grazing changes over the last five
years), who wanted to help...first starting with the drain, then with scrubbing
the tub. I fixed the pipe and replaced the valve, then did the first pass on
the drain clearing...shovel and bucketing the muck over to the source to
reinforce the edges.

All this time there had been a large group of young adults parked up in
the meadow with shade tents and all, they finally came down as I was refilling
the tub and doing some cleanup work. As expected, they were wearing clothes and
behaving as per stereotypes. My only concern is that they would stay in a long
time...i.e.past when I wanted to get in. They didn't, and as they left, I
implied that there would be nudity the rest of the night. They never came back,
and, indeed packed up and left the next morning without even peeking at the
tub.

The rest of us had good soaks evening and morning. The Forest Service
crew was joined by some climbers and folks heading for Burning Man.

Thursday through Saturday, backpacking in the Dorothy
Lakes Basin, the closest trailhead to the hot springs.

Sunday morning, (it goes without saying that there is
soaking interspersed with all activities at the hot spring), I did the finish
digging out of the drain so the tub would drain dry, if so desired, and a few
more general cleanup chores around the tub. Maybe on my next trip up there,
I'll work on reinforcing the west edge of the surround to the grass can grow
back better and keep sand and silt washing into the surround. Maybe next
weekend. After I finished up, it was off the Bishop to do a bit of shopping,
have chinese for lunch, pick up extra reading materials (The Ever Changing
View - The History of the Forest Service in California, a four pound trade
paper tome, that despite its USDA imprimatur is actually not bad reading) and
continue south to Lone Pine. Braving the crowds at the ranger station, I picked
up my dayhike permit and went in search of a drinkable whiskey (since I had
forgotten to do so in Bishop)...in vain. Nothing above the quality of Red Label
or regular Jack...not even a basic drinkable whisky like Glenlivet or an
American whiskey like Knob Creek, or even a decent tequila. Snob I am, I'd
rather go without a summit toast than drink that.

Mount Whitney(from Lone Pine, in wintertime)

Ended up offering to share my campsite with a larger group next to me,
which was pleasant. Made my goal time to the summit (under 4 hours), summited
Mount Muir (thank you, shoes), got down in good order and made it back to San
Francisco by 11pm.